Collaborative research team to uncover how plants “remember” and adapt to heat stress

Donald Danforth Plant Science Center

FacebookXLinkedInWeChatBlueskyMessageWhatsAppEmail

ST. LOUIS, MO, November 10, 2025 - A new collaborative research team of plant scientists led by Ru Zhang, PhD, associate member, Danforth Plant Science Center has been awarded new funding from the National Science Foundation to investigate how photosynthetic cells retain “heat stress memory” (HSM), a key adaptive mechanism that could help future crops withstand intense and frequent heat waves. 

Photosynthesis, the process by which plants convert sunlight into energy, is the key driver of plant growth and food production, but it is especially vulnerable to heat. High temperatures in field conditions can decrease photosynthetic efficiency, impair plant growth and reduce crop yields. Yet scientists still know little about how plants, especially photosynthetic processes, respond to and adapt to repeated heat at the cellular and genetic level.

“Plants often face the same stresses repeatedly, yet they have remarkable strategies for maintaining stress memory and recovering growth,” said Zhang. “By learning how photosynthetic cells ‘respond to and ‘remember’ heat at a molecular and genetic level, we can lay the foundation for future approaches to strengthen crop performance under high temperatures.” 

The new research project will use a powerful combination of interdisciplinary tools, including genome-scale and high-throughput approaches, to decode how HSM is regulated in photosynthetic cells. Unlike many previous studies that relied on short-lived stress events or plants grown in artificial conditions (e.g., Petri dishes), Zhang’s team will examine multi-generational HSM using highly controlled algal cultures alongside soil-grown model plants under physiologically relevant conditions that more closely resemble nature.

The research will engage a broad range of scientists who study stress responses in plant cells to drive innovative agricultural solutions and improve crops' resilience to heat stress. Beyond scientific discovery, the project will support education and outreach activities designed to equip mentees at various levels and implement computational tools as community resources, thereby broadening the impact of the research. 

Co-PIs include, Xuehua Zhong, PhD, professor of Biology, Washington University in St. Louis, and Jianlin Cheng, PhD, professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, University of Missouri Columbia. 

About the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center
Founded in 1998, the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center is a nonprofit research institute with a mission to improve the human condition through plant science. The Center’s research, education and outreach efforts focus on food security and environmental sustainability, positioning the St. Louis region as a global leader in plant science. The Center is supported by funding from organizations such as the National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health, U.S. Department of Energy, U.S. Department of Agriculture, The Gates Foundation and the generosity of individuals, corporation and foundation donors. For more information, visit danforthcenter.org.

For more information contact:
Karla Roeber, Vice President, Public and Government Affairs, kroeber@danforthcenter.org

NIH grant will help probe ‘nutritional memory’ to increase understanding of food choices

A physiology researcher believes a better understanding of the gut-brain connection can help explain dietary choices and lead to strategies for altering food preferences.

University of Arizona, Office of Research and Partnerships

FacebookXLinkedInWeChatBlueskyMessageWhatsAppEmail

 

image: 

M. Maya Kaelberer is assistant professor of physiology at the College of Medicine – Tucson.

view more 

Credit: Photo by Noelle Haro-Gomez, U of A Health Sciences Office of Communications

A University of Arizona College of Medicine – Tucson researcher will explore how maternal diet influences offspring food choices later in life thanks to a National Institutes of Health’s New Innovator award, a five-year, $1.5 million “high-risk, high-reward” grant given to early-career scientists advancing ambitious hypotheses with intriguing potential.

The funding will turbocharge investigations led by M. Maya Kaelberer, assistant professor of physiology, into cells called neuropods, which send signals from the intestine to the reward center of the brain via the vagus nerve.

Previous work showed that when mice ate high-fat and high-sugar diets during pregnancy, their offspring were more likely to gain weight — even when eating the same diet as other mice. Her upcoming studies will explore the extent of this maternal connection by making sweetened condensed milk freely available to the mom, then testing the gut sugar sensitivity of the offspring.

“I’m trying to create as natural a situation as possible, similar to how we eat. We have our fresh vegetables, but someone brings in cookies, and we have five of them,” she said. “We’re really good at supplementing our diet with stuff that is not very good for us. Likewise, mice will drink a ton of sweetened condensed milk, but they’ll have their normal chow as well.”

Her hypothesis is that mice exposed to a high-fat, high-sugar diet in the womb will have guts that are wired to require denser calorie sources to feel satisfied.

Kaelberer hopes a better understanding of the gut-brain connection will provide a peek into people’s differing food choices, discoveries that might someday allow dieticians to design diets that are easier to adhere to. An even more ambitious goal — straight out of the realm of science fiction — is to figure out how to “reprogram” the gut at a cellular level to push people toward favoring healthier foods.

She believes this understanding begins with exploring the “nutritional memory,” which is influenced by foods eaten during pregnancy. In addition to fat and sugar, she will investigate how neuropods sense other nutrients and communicate their presence to the brain.

“Maternal diet is going to influence the food choices of the offspring later in life,” Kaelberer said. “The gut is probably encoding nutrient signals that inform the offspring what to expect. Their sensory system gets set up to value certain foods over other foods.”

She hopes her work will enable dieticians to create more palatable personalized diets, such as heart-healthy or diabetes-friendly plans that cut out certain foods. If neuropods are priming people to want those foods, she wonders if a better understanding of the nutritional memory will help identify healthier foods that scratch the same itch.

“If you can supplement with other things, the diet is not going to be so restrictive and horrible to follow,” she said. “I’m interested in bringing my background in sensory neuroscience to the field of nutrition to figure out the complex interplay between the gut, brain and our food preferences. Maybe someday we can create new dietary guidelines that help us eat healthier while also taking the gut’s role in our dietary choices into account.

Kaelberer’s previous studies found a particularly long-lived type of neuropod that could be the key to storing nutritional memory and play a big role in the stability of our food preferences throughout our lives.

She will remove the long-lived neuropods that are sensitized toward certain types of nutrients — like fat and sugar — to see if the mice begin making different decisions. If that works, her hunch is that someday similar cells could be targeted in humans to influence food preferences.

“Could we develop a drug that targets only those long-lived cells and reverse their effects on our decisions? First, we have to show that it has an effect in mice,” she said. “Then, we need to show that it is the same with our neuropods. Translating this work to humans could be a gamechanger, as until now the global burden of diet-related disease has only grown, despite everything we’ve learned about nutrition.”

 

Preclinical support for using psychedelics to treat alcohol use disorders

Researchers discover a mechanism in female mice that explains how psilocin, the active compound of a psychedelic found in mushrooms, may reduce alcohol use

Society for Neuroscience

FacebookXLinkedInWeChatBlueskyMessageWhatsAppEmail

A psychedelic found in mushrooms is emerging as a potential treatment for alcohol use disorders. This possibility is due to a compound the body converts the psychedelic into called psilocin, but psilocin’s mechanisms remain unclear. Researchers, led by Sarah Magee and Melissa Herman at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, explored whether psilocin targets neurons in the central amygdala involved in emotional processing and stress to alter alcohol use in their JNeurosci paper. Herman emphasizes that preclinical work like this is necessary for filling gaps in knowledge about drug mechanisms, especially in the field of psychedelic research. 

Focusing on female mice because they drink more alcohol than male mice, the researchers discovered that psilocin dampened the activity of these neurons following long-term alcohol exposure. This decrease in activity was associated with less alcohol drinking during drug exposure, though drinking was restored in later sessions. These observations also occurred in mice with less severe alcohol exposure, supporting clinical work showing that psychedelics may help improve issues with emotional processing and stress across a range of psychiatric disorders.  

According to the researchers, these findings may shape interpretations of clinical studies on psychedelic treatments. Elaborating on their findings, says Herman, “It makes sense that dampening this neuron population reduces drinking because increased activity in these neurons is associated with alcohol use disorders. These neurons also play a role in depression and anxiety, which psychedelics are also showing promise at treating, so our work provides some mechanistic insight in those contexts, too.”  

### 

Please contact media@sfn.org for full-text PDF. 

About JNeurosci 

JNeurosci was launched in 1981 as a means to communicate the findings of the highest quality neuroscience research to the growing field. Today, the journal remains committed to publishing cutting-edge neuroscience that will have an immediate and lasting scientific impact, while responding to authors' changing publishing needs, representing breadth of the field and diversity in authorship. 

About The Society for Neuroscience 

The Society for Neuroscience is the world's largest organization of scientists and physicians devoted to understanding the brain and nervous system. The nonprofit organization, founded in 1969, now has nearly 35,000 members in more than 95 countries. 

---

Journal

JNeurosci

DOI

10.1523/JNEUROSCI.0652-25.2025 

Article Title

The Psychedelic Psilocin Suppresses Activity of Central Amygdala Corticotropin Releasing Factor Receptor 1 Neurons and Decreases Ethanol Drinking in Female Mice

Article Publication Date

10-Nov-2025

 

Exploring how the maternal bond affects social processing in babies

Neural Tracking of the Maternal Voice in the Infant Brain

Infants quickly recognize their mothers’ voices and maternal speech may influence how babies process unfamiliar social cues, such as the faces of strangers.

Society for Neuroscience

FacebookXLinkedInWeChatBlueskyMessageWhatsAppEmail

In a new JNeurosci paper, Sarah Jessen and colleagues, from the University of Lübeck, explored how infants track their mothers’ voices compared to unfamiliar voices. The researchers also explored whether this vocal processing affects how babies process new faces. 

Brain recordings of babies around 7 months old showed that they were far more attuned to the voices of their mothers than strangers. Additionally, neural tracking of unfamiliar faces was stronger when babies heard a stranger’s voice compared to their mother’s voice at the same time. Whether a face was happy or fearful did not affect these observations. 

According to the researchers, these findings suggest that babies are quick to recognize their mothers’ voices. Furthermore, maternal speech may influence social processing in babies as they look at unfamiliar faces. Speaking on future experimental plans, says Jessen, “It’d be interesting to see how other sensory modalities like a mother’s smell or touch influence social processing in infants. How are babies combining sensory modalities to understand their social environment?”

### 

Please contact media@sfn.org for full-text PDF. 

About JNeurosci 

JNeurosci was launched in 1981 as a means to communicate the findings of the highest quality neuroscience research to the growing field. Today, the journal remains committed to publishing cutting-edge neuroscience that will have an immediate and lasting scientific impact, while responding to authors' changing publishing needs, representing breadth of the field and diversity in authorship. 

About The Society for Neuroscience 

The Society for Neuroscience is the world's largest organization of scientists and physicians devoted to understanding the brain and nervous system. The nonprofit organization, founded in 1969, now has nearly 35,000 members in more than 95 countries. 

---

Journal

JNeurosci

DOI

10.1523/JNEUROSCI.0646-25.2025 

Subject of Research

People

Article Title

Neural Tracking of the Maternal Voice in the Infant Brain

Article Publication Date

10-Nov-2025